


Hard to Digest

by madelegg



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Eventual Romance, Gore, Illnesses, M/M, Sickfic, Slow Burn, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2020-10-29 15:34:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20798936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madelegg/pseuds/madelegg
Summary: In the midst of the Five Years War, Claude von Riegan sets up camp with his men at Garreg Mach with plans to take it over as an Alliance base. Upon exploring the old monastery, Claude discovers the bridge to the cathedral has partially collapsed, and on the other side, perched in the goddess tower and stranded, is the crown prince, feasting on the bodies of old Imperial corpses. Once upon a time, Claude called his man a friend, but Dimitri is not the same person he was years ago.





	1. The Stench of Death

The monastery did not feel like a home to Claude anymore. Now deserted, the last slivers of the day’s light bathed the old campus in the shadows of its buildings, leaving the Alliance leader to navigate by the glow of his oil lamp. His camp was not far outside campus; they had plans to scour the old monastery for supplies the next day before the took over the campus and made it a new Alliance base, but Claude could not resist perusing the halls of his old stomping grounds before they did so, his white wyvern following alongside him, sticking close, her graceful head twitching at every sound. He stroked the side of her face gently to calm her.

The place was in rough condition. Due to lack of upkeep after the invasion at Garreg Mach, several of the buildings were missing chunks of roofs or ceilings, but others stood strong as they always had, no different than they were five years ago save for the overgrown plants and a layer of dust. As he moved deeper into the monastery, through the reception hall and up toward the cathedral, he stopped at the front of the bridge.

It had been partially destroyed, a large chunk taken right out of the center, cutting the cathedral off entirely from the monastery and leaving it a floating island. Claude’s heart sank. He may have spent little time in the cathedral in his academy days, but to see his old home destroyed in such a way certainly brought him no joy. He thought to turn back, conclude his wanderings, but his curiosity got the best of him. Surely there was no one in the cathedral with the bridge in this state, but Claude wanted to see how bad the damages were to the building itself, so he mounted his wyvern and crossed the gap.

He pushed the double doors open, filling the empty sanctuary with an eerie creak, and peered in, holding out his oil lamp, which only served to show him what was directly in front of him. The sun was entirely gone now, but he could see at the far end of the room, past the pews, was a massive pile of rubble where a chunk of the ceiling had fallen in, now illuminated by moonlight. He instructed his wyvern to stay behind in case the building was unstable. If he were to be trapped inside, he knew his wyvern would go get help.

Claude wandered through old pews, noting a subtle but foul stench floating on the breeze. Perhaps an animal had died here recently. For a place being slowly reclaimed by nature, it was inevitable for nature to wage her own wars within these walls. He brushed off the stench in his mind, but with every breath, it seemed to come back stronger. His nose crinkled in discomfort, but his curiosity got the better of him and he followed it.

The smell led to the base of the goddess tower, where Claude could see large shapes crowding the edges of the stairs leading up. He brought his light over and saw that they were corpses, Imperial corpses, armor still intact over their rotting bodies. They were all in various stages of decomposition. Some had been reduced to bones, others still had flesh clinging to their faces. Those with flesh remaining had notable chunks taken out, as though a wild animal had gotten to them. Claude would not have been surprised if wolves and coyotes had made a den somewhere in this monastery, feasting on the flesh of fallen soldiers, but there were notable man-made wounds on these corpses aside from the chunks removed.

Claude knew at that moment that he should turn back and get back up before he pushed on, because whatever awaited him surely was not something he should face alone, but still he climbed. There was a chance whatever had done this was long gone anyway, and if it wasn’t, it may be gone by the time he came back with support. Of course, that should have been the ideal situation, but Claude feared missing a chance to see what beast awaited him at the top of the tower.

The amount of corpses only thickened as he went up, and the stench grew until it was nearly unbearable. He removed his half cloak from his shoulder and tied it around his mouth and nose to try and block out some of the smell, which was making his eyes water. His stomach twisted with more than disgust as he neared the top, and he started to pick up sounds echoing through the otherwise silent halls. It sounded like snuffling of some sort, the huffing of a beast, though he couldn’t tell how many just by the quiet echoes. 

He emerged from the top of the stairs and saw the furred shoulders of a monster; it was unlike any animal he had seen in terms of shape and size; perhaps it was a bear? It was hunched over a corpsed, assumedly imperial, its head shadowed in darkness so Claude could only make out its basic shape. Its shoulders shifted as it snuffled and growled, jerking its head back with the sound of tearing flesh. It was distracted, eating. Claude swallowed hard, his hand on his bow in case it spotted him, though he didn’t know if he could draw an arrow fast enough in such close quarters to protect him from a bear, and he would have to drop his lamp, leaving him mostly blind.

Just as he was about to turn and creep away to warn his camp, a sliver of moonlight shone through one of the thin windows and Claude saw that the fur was the shoulders of a cloak, leading into long blue fabric that pooled on the bloody floor, and the head that jerked up was blond, and not furred but rather it was covered in long, greasy hair. This was a man, and Claude feared he recognized him.

Claude caught a glimpse of a sharp blue eye in the light, which was trained solely on the corpse, and he knew he was looking at Dimitri, once the Crown Prince of Faerghus, his mouth and hands covered in blood. Claude felt he would have been safer with the bear. 

He took a step back, his boot hitting a rock, and Dimitri’s head shot up. Their eyes met and the blood left Claude’s face, his heart pounding so loud in his chest it practically echoed through the tower. His eyes darted to what looked like Dimitri’s lance, which laid on the floor at his side, but Dimitri’s hand did not reach for it. Instead, he looked back down and then returned to eating the imperial corpse, bending down on all fours to tear the flesh with his teeth like a wild dog.

Did he not see him? Did he not care? How could he not care? Claude had a slew of questions, but seeing Dimitri eat his prey like this made Claude wonder if Dimitri could even speak anymore. His eye had held the intelligence of a man, but his actions said otherwise. Claude was disgusted, certainly, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the gory scene, even as nausea settled heavily in his stomach at the sight of it. He took a deep breath, then coughed at the stench he could barely bear to breathe in. He pulled his cloak off his face to speak; it did nothing to block the smell out.

“Dimitri?” 

Dimitri looked up slowly, still chewing, and swallowed his mouthful, wiping the blood on the back of his already-bloody hand, smearing it further.

“What,” he said roughly, his hoarse voice so low it sounded like a growl.

“That… is you, right?”

“Tch,” Dimitri grabbed his lance and slowly pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. “Why do you haunt me, Claude? I owe you nothing. Your death is on your own hands.”

“My death? I am not dead, Dimitri.”

Dimitri blinked; the news seemed to come as a surprise to him. He stepped over the corpse he’d been eating and approached Claude, who steeled himself so he would not step back. With a bloody hand, he reached out and grabbed Claude’s face hard, his fingers digging into his cheeks, and tilted his head up to face him.

“I see,” he said gruffly and let go of his face, leaving bloody smears across his jaw. “Then I cannot let you leave.”

Claude swallowed hard, glancing toward the stairwell, but he stood no chance of escaping before Dimitri ran him through. He would stand no chance in close quarters combat either. Dimitri raised the tip of his lance and pointed it at Claude’s throat. Claude raised his hands in surrender.

“Before you kill me,” he said. “You should know you are trapped here. The bridge to the cathedral is collapsed.”

That seemed to give Dimitri pause and he lowered his lance a bit. “Is it now? Then how did you get over here?”

“My wyvern. She’s waiting outside.” 

Dimitri glanced toward the stairwell, as if she’d be climbing up the narrow hall to meet them right now.

“I see,” Dimitri said again and seemed to be thinking.

“Did you not know the bridge was collapsed?” Claude asked, confused as to how long he’d survived up here without any supplies. “How long have you been up here?”

Dimitri was quiet; Claude wasn’t sure if he planned to answer that question.

“Must’ve been Ferdinand,” he finally muttered.

“What?”

“He led the last imperial attack on this place. He must have blown out the bridge when he lost all his troops, the coward.”

Claude knitted his brows. “The last attack? Have there been previous attacks?”

Dimitri snorted, as if the question was too stupid for him to deign to answer. He lowered his lance the rest of the way and flicked it toward the stairwell.

“Just leave, Claude. I will only give you one chance.” Dimitri turned away to return to his meal.

“You’ll starve up here,” he said and Dimitri spun back around, his lance immediately at Claude’s throat again.

“I said leave,” he growled.

Claude flinched at Dimitri’s threat and conceded, shifting away to the stairwell under Dimitri’s watchful eye. As soon as he got there, he rushed down the stairs, nearly tripping over the old, half-eaten corpses Dimitri had thrown down there. He tore the cloak from his face and burst out of the stairwell, leaning over the railing and vomiting off the edge. 

For a minute, he just leaned there, feeling the cold breeze hit his bloody face, his chest heaving for breath before he wiped his mouth on the back of his glove and tried to wipe away what blood he could rub away. Then he dragged his feet as he returned to his wyvern, pulling himself onto her back and taking off, turning to look at the goddess tower fading behind him. Even in the wind far from the tower, the stench of death still clung to his clothing, in his nose, and even in his mouth, overpowering the sour taste of vomit he longed to clean out.

Claude groaned and leaned down against his wyvern, the image of Dimitri tearing flesh from bone with just his teeth etched in his mind. He couldn’t tell the rest of his camp; if anyone else found out that the crown prince was locked up in the goddess tower eating rotting bodies. If there was any hope for Dimitri at all, Claude would have to clean him up and present him to his people with some sort of lie about his previous whereabouts. For now, all he’d be able to do is lie about the structural instability of the cathedral and forbid anyone from going there.

So that’s what he did. His trip had been nostalgic in person; he hadn’t been scouting, but he still made the announcement about what he found anyway. There seemed to be no complaints when he declared the cathedral to be off limits due to structural instabilities. Claude was the only one there with a wyvern anyway, so the broken bridge would prove to be an advantage in keeping anyone from sneaking over and finding the prince.

That just left taking care of Dimitri.

Though the man didn’t seem to care, Claude knew he could not survive on the old corpses of imperial soldiers for long, even if his body could digest theirs. With no clean water or fresh food, Dimitri would either starve to death or fall ill and die, and the fact that he hadn’t already was shocking. Claude knew he didn’t have much time to sort this out.


	2. To Feed a Beast

Despite Dimitri’s threats, Claude returned the next day, once again waiting until the evening sun dipped behind the horizon and his presence would not be too sorely missed. He carried a large jug of drinking water under one arm and a parcel of meat and vegetables he’d stolen from the cook’s tent and slipped out of camp. Everyone was preoccupied with moving further into the monastery and had spend the day cleaning and setting up camp beyond the marketplace and into the entrance hall, which stood strong despite the battle and provided good shelter in case of foul weather.

The stables and the aviary had also been cleaned up and now housed the horses that had brought his squadron there, along with his dear wyvern. With the aviary already further north than the stables, which was beyond the camps, Claude easily slipped away with her to the cathedral once again without even having to use the laundry list of excuses he’d cooked up if he was spotted.

At the foot of the goddess tower, the stench was still as thick as a wall across the entrance to the stairwell. The rotting bodies that had once been there had been moved, though the bones were still there. Claude gritted his teeth and climbed the stairs again, shuffling past old skulls, scraps of scalp still clinging limply to their old owners.

At the top of the tower, Dimitri had moved most of the bodies up and stacked them in an ungodly pile, their mass of cloth and flesh seeming to mold together. Claude was unable to tell where one corpse ended and another began, and none of them seemed particularly fresh. Claude’s growing concern for Dimitri’s health overwhelmed his disgust.

Dimitri now sat away from the slanted moonlight rays from the windows, settled in a shadowy corner with the dark shape of a torso draped beside him. He lifted his arm to his mouth and bit into it slowly, as one might tuck into a leg of lamb, with restraint much unlike the violence in which he tore at the abdomen of yesterday’s meal. The humanity of such tenderness gave Claude pause. He stared at the man, unmoving, though he felt his presence was surely noted. And yet, Dimitri continued to eat, and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Claude could see he’d chewed half the soldier’s arm down to the bone.

Dimitri finally looked up, his sharp eyes drooped and bleary, and he did not make a move to stand.

“Enjoying the show?” he asked, his words dripping with cynicism.

Claude felt pity pierce his chest at just a hint of the self-loathing that chained Dimitri to this tower. He walked forward, his oil lamp illuminating the man’s bloody face. His eyes flitted to the body half in his lap, which was headless and severed at the waist down. The skin looked grey with decomposition, the blood so old it was nearly black around Dimitri’s lips.

“I gave you a chance to leave with your life and you returned,” Dimitri said coldly, staring up at Claude.

Claude set the water jug down and placed the food parcel on top of it and crouched down to meet the man eye-to-eye, warning bells ringing in his head as he put himself in an easy position to be stabbed.

“You know me. I know how to call a bluff when I see one,” he said, shrugging, forcing down a cough as the smell filled his open mouth. Still, his voice faltered at the end and he had to bring the back of his arm to his mouth.

Dimitri smirked, but it did not reach his eye. “You think I was bluffing.”

“Oh no, not at all.”

Dimitri’s smirk vanished and was replaced with a scowl. He let the arm fall from his grip and Claude’s eyes went pointedly to Dimitri’s hands to see if he’d pick up his lance, but he didn’t.

“Why are you here?” Dimitri asked.

Claude patted the jug he’d brought with him. “Drinking water. And real food. It’s not much, but I can get more tomorrow.”

Dimitri huffed. “What a waste of time. Take it back to your camp. I do not want it.”

Claude frowned. “You cannot subsist on old corpses, Dimitri. The rotting flesh is going to make you sick.”

“That does not matter.”

“What if you fall ill and no one is here to treat you?”

“Then I will die.”

The simplicity of such a response made Claude grit his teeth. He knew then that trying to use Dimitri’s life as a bargaining chip against him would be pointless. Claude stared at him, wondering if the attempt to save his life would be worth it. If he was found dead up here, then it would change very little about the state of the kingdom and the empire; he was already presumed dead anyway. And yet, if he could drag him out and get him eating real food again, perhaps there was still a chance for Dimitri to retake the throne, and with the Kingdom backing up the Alliance, perhaps there would be some hope against the Empire.

Still, to think of Dimitri, his old friend, being nursed back to health only to be used as a bargaining chip to get the Kingdom under the Alliance’s thumb twisted his gut. He may not be the kind boy Claude once knew, but he was not a gold piece to be traded for political gain. And Claude could not assume that Dimitri would work with them anyway, or if he could even be rehabilitated after how long he’d spent holed up in here.

Claude straightened up with a grunt.

“I will leave this here then. You need to at least drink water.”

Dimitri huffed. “Take the food back. You will only waste it.”

“I’ll leave it. In case you change your mind.”

Dimitri scowled and stood up, grabbing the parcel and shoving it into Claude’s hands, leaving blackish stains on the cloth. He was close enough for Claude to smell his breath, as rancid as the rotting stench of the room but with a wet heat that seemed to clog Claude’s nostrils. Sanding at his full height, the man towered over Claude by several inches.

“Take it back,” he growled. “I cannot eat it.”

“‘Cannot’?”

“It has been too long,” Dimitri said, suddenly unable to meet Claude’s eyes. “My body will not tolerate it.”

Claude felt his heart sink. He set his oil lamp on top of the water jug and unwrapped the parcel. He took out a paper wrapped chunk of deer meat, showing it to Dimitri. “It’s just venison. You can’t digest this?”

Dimitri looked at it with the same disgust Claude looked at the corpses. “No.”

Claude gently tore off a piece of the venison, which was unseasoned but tender in its freshness. He lifted the piece to Dimitri’s lips. “Try it.”

Dimitri stared at it for a few seconds, but Claude didn’t budge, so he gently put his mouth around it, his wet lips sliding against Claude’s gloves, sending a chill down his spine. He felt Dimitri’s tongue brush against his fingers as he sucked the piece of meat from his hand and swallowed it easily, and Claude watched the muscles of his throat swell. He stared without meaning to, his mind drifting for a moment, thinking he should have left his gloves behind.

“Is that good enough for you?” Dimitri asked, interrupting Claude’s thoughts.

“Oh, uh, how do you feel?”

Dimitri huffed. “I have not felt well in a long time. I do not know how you expect me to answer that question.”

Claude blinked, feeling distracted. “Well, you should drink some water regardless. Surely your body can still process that much.”

“...Yes.”

Claude wrapped the meat back up and set it down, then took a cup from the parcel and uncorked the water jug, filling the cup and handing it to Dimitri. Without complaint, the man took it and drank it down, emptying it in seconds and handing the cup back for more. He did this three times and Claude felt a weightless hope blossom. At least he was drinking. At least he was listening.

“If that is all you came here for, then you can leave,” Dimitri said, looking at the jug and the wrapped meat before walking back to his corner and slumping back onto the floor. It seemed he was done talking.

“If that’s what you wish,” Claude said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Dimitri waved at him dismissively and Claude picked up his oil lamp, leaving the food and water behind.

Claude did not feel quite as sick leaving the goddess tower this time as he did the last. Instead, as he mounted his wyvern, he looked down at his glove, seeing the light scuffs of browned blood where Dimitri’s lips had touched him, and his heart rate quickened. He needed to get Dimitri out of that tower.


	3. Growing Intolerance

Claude did not wait until the following night to visit Dimitri again. Thoughts of him rotting away in the tower had kept him tossing and turning in his tent all night long, so he got up before daybreak. Most of the camp was still asleep, save for the guards standing watch outside the reception hall, so this time, Claude gathered up some washcloths and a bucket and filled it with water before making his way to the goddess tower for a third time. Perhaps it was presumptuous of him to bring washcloths, but he didn’t think he could bear to look at Dimitri with his face and hands crusted with blackened blood one more time.

He climbed the tower, feeling notable confidence pushing him upward. The thought that he may be getting used to the smell perturbed him, but perhaps it was for the best. With the light of dawn shining in through the windows, Claude did not need an oil lamp to make his way to the top, so he carried a bundle of cloths in one arm and his bucket in the other.

At the top of the tower, Claude surveyed the room for changes, and saw Dimitri still in the same corner he’d left him in, slumped over on his side. The torso he’d been cradling the night before was gone now and Claude noticed the piece of venison he’d left behind was gone and the paper it was wrapped in sat crumpled on the ground by the water jug. Dimitri did not move. Perhaps he was still asleep? To wake a sleeping beast was dangerous, so Claude approached quietly, feeling his stomach twist in anxiety. He hoped Dimitri was, in fact, only sleeping.

He quickly realized that was not the case. Dimitri’s eye was closed, but his chest was heaving hard and fast, his hair draped over his face in greasy strands and his forehead soaked in sweat. Beside him was a pool of vomit. The fact that Dimitri didn’t even have the energy to move away from it was alarming.

Claude rushed over, putting the cloths and bucket down, and crouching down beside the prince. He swept Dimitri’s hair out of his face and yanked his glove off, placing his palm over the man’s forehead, then at the back of his neck. Both were burning hot. Dimitri opened his eye slowly.

“...Claude?” he muttered.

Claude smiled weakly. “Hey, your princeliness. Not feeling too well?” He fought to keep the concern out of his voice.

Dimitri let out a few shallow breaths. “No… that meat… I told you.”

Claude turned and grabbed a cloth, soaking it and wringing it out before gently wiping at Dimitri’s mouth and chin.

“It’s not the meat, Dima. It’s these damn corpses. This was bound to happen eventually.”

“It was… the meat,” he insisted hoarsely.

Claude sighed, tossing the first cloth off to the side, dirtied beyond use, and soaked another one. By the second cloth, Dimitri’s face was slightly stained but all the crusted blood had been removed entirely. He tossed the second and picked up a third, wiping his lips again, knowing the taste in the man’s mouth must be unbearable. Dimitri remained limp, eye drifting shut again as he let Claude do as he pleased.

Without thinking, he slid the washcloth between Dimitri’s lips, the heat of his mouth enveloping Claude’s two fingers. He pressed against Dimitri’s hot tongue and the prince opened his eye. Weakly, Dimitri’s lips closed around his fingers and he began to suck at the damp fabric, realizing how desperately thirsty he was. Claude bit his lip, his free hand gripping his knee tightly as he tried not to squirm, but the hairs on his arms stood on end. He felt a twinge between his legs and bit down hard on his tongue, sliding his fingers out of Dimitri’s mouth. To think such things about a man in Dimitri’s condition, Claude thought himself truly deplorable.

“More water…” Dimitri said.

Claude nodded briskly and went to get Dimitri a cup, filling it with the water from the jug he’d left behind the night before.

“Can you sit up?” he asked and Dimitri took a deep breath before trying.

With one arm, Dimitri pressed his palm flat to the stained stone floor, pushing himself enough to to wedge his other elbow between him and the floor. That simple action seemed to wind him, however, and he stopped to breath. Claude set the cup down and went over to help him, supporting him on one shoulder until he was fully righted, leaning all his weight against the wall at his back.

Claude brought the cup to him and knelt next to him now, bringing the water to his lips. Dimitri drank greedily, but Claude only let him have a bit before he took the cup away. Dimitri groaned.

“Take it slow,” Claude said gently. “If you can’t keep down water, we’ll have a real problem.”

Dimitri seemed to accept that, only showing it by not protesting further, and Claude gently swept his hair out of his face again. Without much else to do but wait until Dimitri could take a few more sips of water, Claude wet a fresh cloth and folded it, holding it gently against the prince’s burning brow. It seemed to visibly relax him and Dimitri leaned his head back against the stone wall.

With his eye closed, Dimitri looked as though he might have fallen asleep, so Claude took the chance to switch the hand holding the cloth up to another hand, only for Dimitri to open his eye and look at him. Claude sighed.

“Dimitri…” Claude began, and Dimitri’s eye narrowed as if he knew what Claude was about to say. “You can’t stay up here. Not in this state, surrounded by… all this. The nights are getting colder, and with that bridge down, there aren’t going to be any more Imperial soldiers coming up here.”

Claude eyed the pile of corpses; if the venison really was what was making Dimitri this sick, they’d have to find a way to get him more human meat, but that couldn’t be accomplished up here either. And Claude could only hand-deliver so much every day until he was discovered.

“I need to take you to camp. We have medicines, bedrolls, blankets. We’ll get you washed up and you can rest comfortably.”

“No.” Dimitri’s voice was soft but resolute.

“Come on, why not? I won’t let anyone bother you. You’ll feel much better. No one will know what happened up here; I’ve already declared this whole area off-limits.”

“Do not think me a fool… Claude,” he said, his sharp eye boring into the Alliance leader. “I know you intend to use me… to ally the Kingdom with the Alliance.” 

Claude knew he couldn’t deny it. Dimitri simply wouldn’t believe he was helping because of their meager history at the academy.

“Aw, you’d doubt me like that, Dima? Come on, I thought we were old pals.”

Dimitri glared at him, then seemed to think it wasn’t worth it. To berate Claude for scheming was to berate a fox for trapping its prey. He sighed and looked up at the arched ceiling.

“I do not wish to be your plaything… or to be in your debt.”

“And if I told you it was no-strings-attached? That I’m doing this just out of the goodness of my heart?”

Dimitri snorted and closed his eyes. That was all the answer Claude needed. He kept his frustration from showing on his face, but even just looking after Dimitri today was risky. He’d been gone for quite a while already; he’d need to have a good excuse waltzing back into camp first thing in the morning smelling like he did. And that was the easy part; getting Dimitri fed would be nigh impossible. Carrying a body over the broken bridge, dead or alive, made his stomach twist. Even if it was for Dimitri’s sake, he wasn’t sure if he could do it. He’d have to force the prince out of this tower or leave him to starve.

Claude continued to re-soak the washcloth and press it to Dimitri’s forehead, giving him sips of water every few minutes, and his gradually the prince’s breathing started to ease up. Slouched against the cold stone wall, Dimitri’s head lolled slightly to the side and Claude could tell he was asleep. 

Dimitri’s lips were slightly parted and in the new silence of the tower, Claude could hear his breathing filtering through his lungs. His lips were chapped and peeling; Claude had felt their dryness soften beneath his damp washcloth, and for a brief moment, his hand lifted as if to touch them again. There had been at time when Dimitri’s lips were flush and pink, his eyes bright as the cloudless sky, and he smiled so easily then. Claude swallowed the lump in his throat. He was afraid to find out what happened to that kind young man.

Claude’s spy network had kept tabs on the Lions, and beyond the disappearance of Dedue, he had not been alerted to any deaths within the various Lions’ families. Of course, he had heard about Dimitri’s suspicious execution as well, only to find him here in the goddess tower, so his spies’ information was not always airtight. Still, if Dedue was not here beside Dimitri, there was no way he could still be alive, which was perhaps for the best. If Dedue were to see what had become of his dear prince, it would break the man’s heart. If Dedue was the only one of the Lions who had not survived the past few years, though, why was Dimitri here and not with one of his old friends? Was it the old memories? Nostalgia? The thought of Dimitri with his face caked in blackened blood did not paint a picture of a man driven by nostalgia. Perhaps he felt he couldn’t burden his old friends with the responsibility of hiding him. Perhaps he felt he wouldn’t be safe. 

Claude reached up to touch Dimitri’s jaw, feeling the rough pricks of his unshaven scruff beneath the tips of his fingers. Dimitri’s eye moved beneath his eyelid and he mumbled something, and Claude quickly pulled his hand away. Claude leaned back a bit, wondering if Dimitri was well enough for Claude to leave him alone for a few hours, or perhaps the rest of the day. He slid two fingers behind the back of Dimitri’s neck and felt the heat radiating off it and knew he couldn’t leave yet. If he alerted his camp, he’d just have to talk his way out of it later; that was the better alternative to Dimitri worsening without Claude to watch.

Claude shifted and sat down beside Dimitri, leaning his back against the same wall, and waited, trying to keep his eyes from looking at the pile of bodies across the room. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but he had dozed off a bit, only to be awakened by Dimitri’s rough voice. 

“I know, I  _ know, _ ” Dimitri snapped, voice low and urgent. “I am  _ trying, _ please, just give me more time.”

Claude did not move, opening his eyes just a sliver, watching Dimitri out of the corner of his eye to see who he was talking to. His heart pounded hard in his chest, fearing someone had found them both, but who would Dimitri be talking to that would make him take such a desperate tone? 

Dimitri was still sitting in the same corner, back pressed hard against the wall, and Claude could see his hands shaking, but there was no one in front of him. He opened his eyes all the way and looked around the room. It was empty.

“I will, Father, please, I am sorry,” Dimitri continued.  _ Father? King Lambert has been dead for years. _

“Glenn, I… you are right, yes, of course.”

Claude shifted, thinking Dimitri would notice him and stop speaking, but Dimitri seemed completely unaware. His face was paler than before, sweat soaking his brow and glueing locks of his greasy hair to his temples.

“Dimitri?”

Dimitri’s head snapped toward Claude so fast that Claude flinched, searching his eye for fury, but finding only fear. He looked on the verge of tears.

“Dimitri… who are you talking to?” Claude hesitated to ask, but felt he had to.

Dimitri glanced at the empty air he’d been speaking to and then looked back to Claude.

“It is… my father. Glenn, Dedue…” He looked out at the empty tower as if there were more.

“They… Dimitri, your father, Glenn… they are dead.” Claude didn’t know how he was supposed to break this news to the man who had watched his father die in front of him years ago. He must still be in the grip of a waking fever dream. 

Dimitri grit his teeth. “I know,” he said, voice hoarse. “They… their ghosts follow me.”

He wouldn’t meet Claude’s eyes, so Claude scooted closer, putting a hand on his shoulder. Dimitri flinched at the touch, but did not move away. 

“They demand things of you?” Claude asked.

“They… demand that I avenge them.”

Claude bit his lip, moving his hand down to Dimitri’s forearm, which still trembled slightly with the exhaustion of tensing his weakened body.

“From Edelgard?”

Dimitri was quiet for a moment and looked down at Claude’s hand on his arm. “Yes,” he mumbled.

Claude swallowed hard, not wanting to say what he was about to say, but if it would get Dimitri out of this tower, then it was worth it. Anything was worth that.

“And how do you expect to accomplish that if you are starving to death here in this tower?”

Dimitri didn’t respond at first and Claude feared he might lash out. But instead, he spoke, his voice soft.

“You really do always insist on getting your own way, don’t you?” Dimitri said, frowning.

“You cannot stay here. You are going to starve to death, and I will not bring you more bodies.”

“Mm,” Dimitri muttered.

It was better than the flat refusal he’d gotten earlier, but Claude felt unsatisfied. Still, there was no use pushing it. If Dimitri was going to think about it, that was a step further than he’d been a few hours ago. Claude knew no one would convince the man except for himself; his best bet was to leave Dimitri to think on it until he agreed. He just hoped Dimitri would be okay up here on his own; it wasn’t as if Claude could go get him food.

Thinking about how much time had passed, Claude knew he really needed to get back to his camp. He couldn’t be up here all day or by nightfall, there might be a search for him, and the last thing he needed was people combing the monastery. He slowly pushed himself to his feet.   
  
“Think about it, then,” he said brusquely. “I have to return to camp.”

Claude straightened up and brushed himself off, as if that would remove any of the grime and reek that clung to him from staying up in this tower for so long. He couldn’t smell it anymore though, which concerned him. He didn’t want to get used to the smell of rotting corpses. And yet, even as he flew back to his camp, soaring over the monastery in search of a stream he could rinse off in, he still could not smell the stench that he knew still clung to him.


	4. Memories of an Old Friend

The next night, Claude did not return.

Not that Dimitri was waiting for him, of course, not for him specifically. He was just waiting in general. Waiting to fall asleep. Waiting for his stomach to stop twisting, his head to stop pounding, his body to stop shivering. Sometimes he felt almost normal, felt his body start to recuperate, and then he’d drag his body across the room to vomit onto the stone floor, arms trembling with the effort of holding his torso over his sick, and knew he was far from well.

He could hold down water. That was about it. But if he drank it too voraciously, he would throw that up as well, so he had to fight hard to take small sips, as Claude had forced him to do last night. Or two nights ago. Dimitri couldn’t tell. But he could tell Claude had been gone for longer than usual; he hadn’t been watching the rise and fall of the sun, but his internal clock felt Claude’s absence like dread heavy on his chest.

“He’s not coming back, you know.”

Dimitri slowly dragged his gaze up the pile of corpses to see Glenn standing at the top, looking at them with disgust.

“Look at this wreck. Is this what you think we want? What are you, a sewer rat?”

“I’m… sorry,” Dimitri forced out.

“If sorry was all it took, then we wouldn’t be here, now, would we?” Glenn said, rolling his eyes. 

Glenn stepped down from the pile, gliding more than he stepped, the corpses not reacting to his feet pressing down on them, and the dripping blood from his old uniform leaving no stains behind. The fabric of his clothing had no cuts or tears, but it was soaked in red. Only a few sources were visible: the gushing cut that circled like a collar around his neck, the shackles of red wrapping around his wrists, all of them bled. The pieces were held together only by Dimitri’s memories of the young man’s living body.

Glenn’s boots stopped in front of Dimitri’s face; Dimitri lacked the strength to meet his eyes.

“You’re always making such stupid decisions, cooping yourself up in here like a damsel in distress, waiting for Claude to bring you food and water, feed you by hand. Are you just his dog?”

Dimitri said nothing. His silence spurred Glenn on.

“Well you make a piss poor pet, since you just let him leave without you. You know why he’s not coming back? Do you? Answer me.”

Dimitri took a shallow breath so he could speak. “Because I am a failure.”

“ _ No. _ Fool. Because he is dead.”

Dimitri’s eye widened and he jerked his head up. Glenn’s chapped lips twisted into a broad smile and the skin split right in the center of his lower lip.

“That’s right, Your Highness. There was an attack last night. Imperial soldiers, the ones you swore to get revenge on? They wiped out the whole Alliance camp. Claude was skewered. Beheaded too, they took his head back to Edelgard to show it off. You know how much she loves stuff like that.”

Dimitri turned his head down, pressing it hard against the grimy stone floor, shoulders hunching. Glenn lightly tapped his shoulder with the tip of his bloody boot. Dimitri did not feel it.

“Are you crying? You know, if you’d just listened to him and gone with him, maybe you could’ve saved his life. Or maybe not. In your state, you wouldn’t have been of much use, but you could have at least died with him. Now you get to die alone. Like me.”

“I… will atone,” Dimitri choked out.

“Atone? Oh no, Dimitri, it’s far too late for that. Surely you don’t think there’s enough life left in you to atone for everything you’ve done? There’s barely enough left in you to stand.”

Dimitri let out a low groan and started to move, crawling his way slowly back to his corner where his old lance laid. Glenn followed behind him, his boot steps echoing across the stone walls.

“Where will you go, Dimitri? Even if you get out of this tower, the bridge is collapsed. Claude was your only way out.”

Dimitri reached for his lance, wrapping his blood-crusted fingers around the shaft, and turned it on its end, jamming the base firmly into the stone. With what little strength remained in his arms, he pulled himself up, his lance as his crutch, and stood, swaying, his head spinning. He stumbled to one side, leaning against the wall, and thought he might be sick again, but in time, it faded. His breathing steadied, even as sweat dripped down his face.

“Do you plan to atone with your life then?” Glenn asked, jerking his head toward the open windows of the Goddess Tower.

Dimitri’s mouth was firmly clamped shut to keep himself from vomiting, not that he had a proper answer anyway. His mind was reeling with a mixture of despair and disbelief. Surely Glenn would not lie to him about Claude’s death, but the thought of Claude, skewered through, decapitated, his body rotting down in the monastery, just out of reach; it felt like a dream. He couldn’t process it.

Dimitri pushed himself off the wall, heading for the staircase, his steel lance clanging with each step. He knew Glenn was right about one thing: he was stuck here regardless, trapped on the wrong side of the bridge, and Claude with his wyvern had been the only way out, but perhaps, from this side, he could still see something, hear something, get some idea of what had happened on the other side. That would be better, he thought for the first time, than rotting up here, starving, dying for no one.

Getting down the stairs meant taking each step one at a time, taking breaks at each landing, wheezing for breath, knowing he could not sit down or he would never get back up again. He could see the light growing brighter with each descending flight, and the glow only made his throbbing headache worse.

Dimitri had not stood under the sun in days, and despite it being a chilly fall day, the heat of its rays were roasting him alive. He had to shut his eye entirely and put his arm over them to block it out, and even that didn’t feel like enough as his body radiated with the heat of his fever.

He leaned back against the tower, gasping for breath, dropping his arm because he simply couldn’t hold it up anymore, and then carefully opening his eye. The old cathedral stood there, as it always had, silent and imposing, the old bricks crumbling, the ceiling caving in. He turned his gaze down the long pathway to the front of the building, and it seemed to stretch further the longer he looked at it. How many times in his youth had he jogged laps around the entirety of the monastery? And now he balked at such a brief walk across even ground.

_ You’re sick, Dimitri, not weak. You should be resting. _

Claude’s voice. Had he imagined that? He looked around, expecting to see his old classmate’s spectral form standing there, wearing the same self-righteous smirk that Glenn always wore, but he saw nothing. Certainly he’d imagined it. Claude was not dead yet. Glenn was mistaken.

Clinging so desperately to that hope was dangerous, even in his half-conscious state Dimitri knew that, but it was the only thought that put one foot in front of the other. If Claude was dead, then there was no reason to walk. If Claude was dead, climbing down all those stairs had been a wasted effort. If Claude was dead, he was too.

“Since when do you value your own life so much?” Glenn stepped around in front of him, taking smooth steps backwards, his blood leaving a fading trail for Dimitri to follow. “What does it matter if you die? You told Claude you didn’t care, didn’t you?”

Dimitri said nothing. He couldn’t. His chest heaved, out of breath, as Glenn goaded him.

“Poor Dimitri, you were trying to act tough, weren’t you? You wanted to go with him so bad, didn’t you? You want him to feed you from his hand again, don’t you? Lick the blood from his fingers? You filthy mongrel.”

Dimitri couldn’t tell him to stop, didn’t have the will to. He never did. Not with Glenn, not with his father or his mother: they said what they wanted and he bowed to their wills. They were the ones rotting, after all, and he was responsible. He owed them, and he could not disobey their wills.

Glenn quieted down a bit, following Dimitri, watching him, and Dimitri could feel his eyes on him whether he could see the spirit or not. It felt like hours passed before he managed to reach the front end of the cathedral, all the way to the broken bridge, and he slumped against the railing, letting his lance fall to the ground with a loud clang. It rolled out of his reach. He didn’t care. He doubted he would need it anymore.

He lowered himself down to the ground, slouching against the railing at first and then slipping all the way down, his face pressed against the cool stone. From here, he could see the opposite end of the bridge, the high structures of the reception hall, the baths, the dorms. He strained his ears to see if he could hear any commotion, but could hear nothing over the pounding of his heart. He could see no movement either, beyond the shaking of the distant trees in the wind.

The beating sun seemed to melt him under the weight of his furred cloak and he reached up with a shaky hand to unhook it from his shoulders, letting it slump behind him. For just a moment, he felt the relief from the loss of the thick fabric and fur, but it was less than a minute before the heat overtook him again. Stars scattered in the fringes of his vision and his bleary eye drifted shut, sending his body spinning into oblivion. 

He didn’t know if he was asleep or awake; he only knew that he was hot, burning hot, sweating, melting. He opened his eye to darkness and his vision would not adjust. Reaching up to touch his face, he found that his eyepatch wasn’t there, only the puffy old scar tissue of his decimated eyelid. His hand moved down. His clothes were not there either, only bare skin, still crusty with old sweat. Was he still at the edge of the bridge? If so, he was steps away from falling off the edge to his death. 

And yet, he felt completely calm, even as his body melted and his mind spun with dizziness.

“You’re always getting yourself into all sorts of trouble, aren’t you, your princeliness?”

“Claude…?”

He looked around, or tried to, and realized his eye was not open. Hadn’t he opened it? No, he was peering through his blond lashes; there was light, there was sound, sound he couldn’t understand. Claude was there, but he couldn’t see him. Everything was a blur.

“I just wish you’d listened to me. Woulda saved you a lot of pain.” A pause. “Ah well, you’re safe now, so I won’t harp on about it too much. You really scared me though.”

“Claude… where are you?”

Claude didn’t seem to hear him. “I was coming back, y’know. I mean, sorry I missed a day, but I guess you could say things got… kinda busy. I thought I left you with enough water though.”

“I don’t understand,” Dimitri said hoarsely. “What’s going on?”

He couldn’t feel his body anymore.. He was floating again, simply a head, a brain, a cloud of consciousness, or perhaps unconsciousness. Forming thoughts was difficult. He thought in circles, repeating the same thing in his head over and over again.

_ Where am I, Claude? Where are you Claude? It’s too hot. It’s too hot. _

Suddenly a cooling sensation. His brow bathed in relief. And then it was gone, gone too fast. He groaned. His body was returning, and it ached, ached like he’d been thrown off a horse and been subsequently trampled by one. And his head throbbed as the daylight burned through his eyelid, bright red. He squeezed it tightly shut, blocking out the light as best as he could.

“You up, your princeliness?”


	5. Speaking to the Dead

Claude had found Dimitri in a lump on the edge of the broken bridge.

He’d seen the black lump of his body from the other end and he looked like a dead bear from a distance, huge and dark. Claude’s heart lurched in panic upon seeing him, fearing Dimitri had ventured from his cave and succumbed to his illness right there on the bridge. He mounted his wyvern in an instant and she threw them both over the gap with one beat of her powerful wings. Before she’d even fully landed, he slid off her back and skidded to the floor in front of Dimitri, turning his blood-blackened face upward. He was breathing, but each breath sounded filtered, weak, and his brow, no, his whole face burned with dangerous heat. He’d only gotten worse while Claude was gone.

Claude threw all his plans away, his strategies to coax Dimitri down, his original ideas on how to hide him and introduce him to his camp. Those plans had assumed Dimitri would be healthy, conscious, and willing to work with him, but the prince’s life was much more important to Claude than first impressions and political drama. He’d work it out later; he always did.

With a great deal of effort, he dragged the hulking man onto his wyvern. She lowered her body helpfully, but tossing him over the saddle was no easy task. Even malnourished and ill, Dimitri was not small. Claude was sure to grab his dirty cloak as well, the fur, which seemed once-white, so dirty that it, too, was nearly black. He figured Dimitri would throw a fit if he woke and found it missing.

With Dimitri treacherously balanced on his wyvern’s back, Claude climbed on behind him and held onto his body tightly, calling for a careful liftoff and gripping his wyvern with his powerful thighs to keep them both balanced.

She flew the two of them over the bridge gap and landed lightly on the other side, Dimitri slipping slightly, and Claude imagined the prince’s body sliding off into the gap, splattering against the cliffs below, and his heart pounded with the thought of such an alternate fate. But Dimitri remained in his grasp, safe, breathing, and Claude adjusted him a bit as his wyvern walked them back to camp.

There was no hiding their guest now, but Claude’s rank prevented his footsoldiers from approaching him with questions, and Dimitri’s dirty hair and hidden face made him look like a random corpse. For now, Claude would use that in his favor.

He took Dimitri straight to his own tent, waltzing his wyvern through camp, trusting her not to step on anyone, and dragged Dimitri’s body off her back and through the canvas flaps. It wasn’t incredibly private, but he had to trust that his rank would continue to prevent nosy soldiers and generals from looking in for a while.

It took a great deal of effort to get Dimitri settled on his own. Just leaving him to put his wyvern back in the aerie took longer than he wanted it to, and then he had to get water, rags, spare clothes, buckets, anything he thought he might need.

_ And corpses, _ he thought to himself with a shiver as he rushed back to his tent, arms laden with supplies.

Dimitri hadn’t moved while Claude was gone, eyelid shut, though his eye darted and shifted under the skin as he seemed to dream. Claude could only imagine what the man was seeing in his sleep. He wondered if it could possibly be worse than what he saw in his waking hours. Dimitri laid on a sleeping mat on the ground, giving Claude more room to move around him.

He started to strip Dimitri, remove his armor. To call it dirty was an understatement; Claude felt like he needed a bath after just touching him, and the reek of rot had already filled his cramped tent. He set the pieces aside, one by one, revealing an undershirt so dirty it was hardened against Dimitri’s body, practically fused to his skin. Claude wasn’t about to try to save it. He found it easier to take out his knife and slice it open, removing it like a cocoon shell from his body and yanking it out from under his torso. Underneath, Dimitri’s skin was darkened and grimy: he’d need more than the little sponge bath Claude was about to give him, but he would do what he could for now.

Given Dimitri’s dangerous temperature, Claude paused in undressing him so he could put a damp cloth on his forehead, but his eyepatch was in the way, tangling with the hair he tried to pull out of the way of his brow, so he reached behind to try and untie it. Unsurprisingly, the knot of the dirty old thing was so tight and clumsily tied that Claude couldn’t undo it, even with his dexterous fingers, so he gave up and cut that off too. Dimitri could yell at him later.

He removed Dimitri’s eyepatch, showing a discoloration in more than just the grime; Dimitri had left it on for so long there was a light tan line in a perfect circle around his dead eye. The eye itself was more gruesome than Claude had assumed. More gruesome than he hoped, with the scar traveling both further up and further down his face than he’d expected, and it was deep. The poor man looked like he’d taken an axe to the face. More than once, given the messy spread of blotchy scar tissue. 

Claude’s fingertips brushed the rough skin, discolored and hard; it would fade a little more with time, but it would certainly never be whole. And Dimitri’s eye, the dead eye, was open, the eyelid split, and it did not move with the other. Claude guessed if he couldn’t see much out of it, if at all.

He took a wet washcloth and started to wipe Dimitri’s face off, careful around his eyes, pushing his greasy hair all the way out of his face so he could get his greasy forehead and the sides of his face. It wasn’t much, but even just the water and one wipe down made a huge difference. Once his face was somewhat clean, he folded a fresh cloth to rest on his forehead, then moved down with the dirty one to try and sponge away some more of the grime. Even just one pass with a dirty cloth left a pale streak across his chest, and another pass made it even lighter, revealing more scars like fossils beneath the dirt.

Claude knew this would be so much easier if he could just get Dimitri into the baths, but he knew even the walk to the baths from his tent would be too much for the man. No, best to let him rest and Claude would do whatever he could to help from here. Dimitri had worked hard enough to survive this long. Claude could keep him safe now, keep him comfortable.

Claude dunked the cloth in his water bucket over and over, cleaning away at Dimitri’s neck, his sharp collarbones, and down across his broad chest. The scars were layered across his body, new over old, mapped out like rivers criss-crossing over his chest and stomach. Goddess. Had he had all of these during school? Any of them? Were they all by imperial soldiers? They couldn’t possibly be. Some looked so old they were barely there. Some weren’t even weapon scars. Images flashed through Claude’s mind, images of a young Dimitri at Duscur, proud Dimitri on missions with his class, malnourished Dimitri, body being torn at by the feral hounds that wandered these grounds.

His fingertip grazed a bite mark that crossed over a stab wound. This man always had a blade pointed at him; his skin had seen more steel than human touch. Claude swallowed a lump in his throat. He looked away, dunking the cloth in the bucket again and wringing it out slowly.

“What happened to you, Dimitri?” Claude asked softly, knowing Dimitri couldn’t hear him. “What have you been hiding inside this whole time?”

He turned back to Dimitri and traced an old scar above his navel with his thumb.

“Did your friends know? Your classmates that loved you so much? The way they looked at you, you would’ve thought they…” He trailed off, swallowed. “Or maybe this is as new to you as it is to everyone else.”

He dragged the cloth across Dimitri’s abdomen, feeling the dip beneath his visible ribs as he moved across his empty stomach. He wondered if the man had eaten anything while Claude was gone, and his gut twisted in disgust knowing that if he ate, it would only have been one thing.

“You must be starving,” he said. “Feeding you won’t be easy.”

He sighed and sat back on his knees, staring at Dimitri’s half-clean body, and shook his head. “It won’t be easy,” he repeated softly.

And yet, the more he repeated it, the less he seemed to care. Dimitri had tried, after all, to eat the normal food Claude had given him, and look where he ended up. Perhaps this was all Claude’s fault, though he wouldn’t let his mind stray down that path. It was his illness that allowed Claude to bring Dimitri down here anyway, where he could be properly watched over and cared for, so perhaps this was a blessing in disguise.

As long as he didn’t die.

Claude checked his temperature again with the back of his hand. He already knew it was high. It wasn’t going to go down in the past hour, but he couldn’t help himself. If Dimitri had come down with Claude earlier, perhaps they could have prevented it from getting this bad.

“You’re gonna push through this, y’know,” Claude said. “I bet you’ve pushed through worse.” His fingers slid away from Dimitri’s forehead and brushed against his right eye. “I bet you think you deserve all of it too, you poor bastard.”

He shifted, leaning back on his hands and crossing his legs in front of him.

“Remember in school during the annual ball? I asked you to dance and you laughed like it was the funniest joke you’d ever heard.” He leaned his head back and looked up at the tent ceiling. “I really just wanted to make you laugh, but it would’ve been nice if you’d said yes. The way you twirled around that ballroom… by the look of you, I thought you’d be stiff as a board with those big, clunky feet of yours, but you were much more graceful than I gave you credit for.”

Claude brought his head back down, his eyes drifting to Dimitri’s calloused hands. His jaw tingled where Dimitri had grabbed him days ago and he rubbed his face to push away the sensation.

“For someone who can snap a lance in two with one hand, I wonder how all those pretty little students felt with those hands on the smalls of their backs? I bet they all trusted you with their lives.”

Claude’s brows knitted. Was he really still annoyed about that? After all these years?

“Maybe I’m the one who needs to grow up, huh.”

With a grunt of effort, Claude scooted down to Dimitri’s legs and took out his knife again. These pants wouldn’t be saved either, not with how shredded and dirty they were.

“Let’s finish getting you cleaned then.”

For the sake of Dimitri’s dignity, he left his underwear on, though that too was disgusting and Claude had to have a serious debate with himself as to whether or not he was going to cut it off too. But he was sure Dimitri wouldn’t appreciate waking up completely naked, and the man had enough to worry about without concerning himself with who had and hadn’t seen his bare manhood.

Once he was clean enough, Claude draped a blanket over him and pushed himself to his feet. He had to dispose of the dirty water and toss the rags in with the laundry, and then he could trouble himself with how he planned to feed Dimitri once he woke up. In the meantime, Dimitri slept, his body desperately trying to work through the illness that ravaged it.

Claude spent every free moment he had by Dimitri’s side in case he woke up, and when he did have to leave, he made sure to come back quickly, or at least come and check on him periodically. He couldn’t trust anyone else to watch Dimitri for him at this camp, and he couldn’t trust Dimitri to not lash out at strangers either. The thought of Dimitri waking up and flying into a rage if Claude wasn’t there to explain the situation was a chilling possibility as well.

As the day slowly passed, though, Dimitri still did not wake up. It gave Claude time to secure some meat for him, but the longer Dimitri slept, the more anxious Claude got. He continued to speak to him, to ease his own mind more than anything, and checked his temperature and his breathing more often than he really should have.

By late that evening, Dimitri was sweating profusely, which was a good sign. He was getting closer and closer to his fever breaking, and Claude spent the whole evening and most of the night gently dabbing away at the sweat on his face and chest. 

Dimitri went through phases most of the evening. Sometimes he was silent, unmoving, and other times he shifted a bit, his face twisted, and he moaned and mumbled in his sleep. Claude couldn’t make out anything he was saying, but he would place his hand on Dimitri’s shoulder or arm, speak softly to him, and whether it helped or not, eventually he would calm down and become still again.

And then, finally, just as dawn was starting to peak over the horizon and filter light through the spaces between the monastery buildings, Dimitri shifted his whole body, groaned, and his left eye opened. Claude’s face broke into a broad smile.

“You up, your princeliness?"


End file.
